How Childhood Trauma Affects High Achievers: Understanding the Link Part 1
As an Illinois therapist, I often work with people who are high achievers and experiencing burnout. Understanding how childhood trauma may impact this group of individuals is essential to healing.
Childhood trauma can refer to any experience in childhood that is distressing, frightening, or overwhelming. Childhood trauma can include:
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Neglect
- Domestic violence
- The sudden loss of a loved one
For my clients in Illinois, emotional neglect is the most common form of childhood trauma they experience. Childhood emotional neglect refers to the lack of attention and comfort you experience growing up. Emotional neglect leaves my clients feeling defeated, ashamed, and lonely, no matter how much they achieve.
Not everyone who experiences childhood trauma will develop long-term effects. People respond differently to trauma due to their unique personalities and other protective factors. However, it’s crucial to understand that these experiences can negatively impact individuals, especially if the trauma isn’t addressed. Below, I expand on the emotional dysregulation my high-achieving clients feel before they resolve their childhood trauma.
High-Achievers With Unresolved Childhood Trauma Feel More Stress and Anxiety
Due to childhood emotional neglect, my clients often don’t know what to do with their feelings. Healthy emotional expression was not part of their childhood. Now, their feelings surprise and overwhelm them. As a means of coping with this emotional dysregulation, they stay busy. Accomplishing tasks and meeting goals helps them avoid emotions and feel a sense of control. However, this sense of power is an illusion. This kind of control isn’t due to inner security. Instead, it often leads to more emotional dysregulation, which impacts their ability to cope with stress, care for themselves, and maintain healthy relationships.
High-Achievers With Unresolved Childhood Trauma Feel More Burnout and Depression
There is nothing wrong with wanting to achieve and being successful. However, if people seek achievement to prove their worth, their mental health usually suffers. People who suffer from childhood emotional neglect can internalize the lack of attention from their families as their fault. Now, not only are they achieving to feel a sense of control over their lives, but they are also achieving as a way to compensate for their feelings of inadequacy. This pressure to succeed increases perfectionistic tendencies among my clients. Since they deal with high-stress levels and do not allow themselves to rest, they burn out. While experiencing burnout, they’ll likely make mistakes, lack motivation, and procrastinate.
High-Achievers With Unresolved Childhood Trauma Struggle With Self-Compassion
High achievers with unresolved childhood trauma often have a false sense of identity. Growing up, they only received attention and connection from their family through effort and accomplishment. My clients do not have a sense of self-worth outside of the esteem that comes from achieving. Therefore, they struggle when burnout occurs, and they are no longer productive. Lack of accomplishment makes my clients feel shame. As a result, they start isolating and feeling depressed.
Achievement does not make high achievers feel better. Instead, it becomes a maladaptive way of coping.
Therapy in Illinois can provide practical and effective support. In trauma treatment, high-achievers can recognize their tendency to internalize stress due to childhood trauma. Through therapy, high-achievers can challenge false beliefs and develop a healthy self-concept. As a result, they can reduce the pressure they put on themselves to succeed and develop healthy coping mechanisms to manage feelings.
Frequently Asked Questions About Childhood Trauma and High Achievers
1. As a high achiever, how do I know what I’m feeling is trauma?
Many Illinois professionals feel pressure to do more, even after years of success. If you link your worth to how much you do, struggle to slow down, or feel guilty when you take a break, this may be the result of childhood emotional neglect.
2. Why don’t I feel good when I reach a goal?
Many clients in Illinois, from Champaign to Chicago’s North Shore, have success that looks good on paper, but feel empty. But they often feel disconnected or restless after they reach a goal, even if they’ve worked hard to get there. They may feel good for a bit, but soon feel empty again. Therapy helps you understand what motivates you and why the problem is not you. It can help make sense of why you feel like you and what else could be going on. Therapy for high achievers helps you rebuild your self-worth without relying on outside approval.
3. How can therapy help with perfectionism and burnout caused by trauma?
Therapy gives you space to pause and understand the pressure you put on yourself. My clients learn to set limits without the guilt that normally comes with it. They stop linking mistakes to failure. With support, you can still excel and do it without burning out in the process.
4. Is trauma therapy only for people with ‘big’ traumas?
Emotional neglect does not have to lead to trauma to cause harm. And emotional neglect can also be traumatic if it was so invalidating for long periods of time and during really important moments. Many of my clients have stated that it wasn’t so hard to get over certain events as it was around the shame and invalidation from others over those events. No matter if you’re from Chicago, Champaign, or a small town in Illinois, therapy can help you heal. It addresses both what happened and what was missing.
5. How do I know if therapy for high achievers is right for me?
If you’re pushing through your days, feeling low, or missing joy, therapy can help you figure out why. Many of my Illinois clients start therapy when they see that “pushing through” isn’t working. They want to live with more ease, have more peace in their daily lives, and finally trust themselves.
Begin Therapy for High Achievers in Mahomet, IL, Chicago, IL, Winnetka, IL, and Across the State
Stop proving your worth through tasks that burn you out. Live Lekko can help equip you with the tools to work through childhood trauma. Together, you can build more self-compassion and receive the support you deserve. Text or call to schedule your therapy appointment today. You can start working with a therapist in Illinois, just follow these simple steps.
- Take the step by calling or texting 217-402-7817
- Schedule your first appointment at my Illinois-based practice to address overworking
- Start understanding what causes you to overwork
Other Therapy Services I Offer in Illinois
I know that you may experience issues related to more than one mental health concern. This is why I offer several additional services to provide you with guidance and support. Other services include counseling for women and grief and loss counseling. I also offer counseling for people-pleasing and therapy for childhood emotional neglect. Whether you are in Peoria, Springfield, Mahomet, or somewhere in between in Illinois I can help with teletherapy. I look forward to hearing how I can help you.